The Light at the End of the Tunnel
by lilac0128
Summary: What turns a man from a hero to a criminal, and vise versa? Choices. And when your only options are Leavenworth for the rest of your life and a chance to become something more, the decision is not hard to make. The rest is just the fun. A rewrite of the last few scenes of S. 9 and the first few scenes of S.10 from a different perspective, with minor deviations from the original.


**Disclaimer: I don't own anything other than my imagination, which has gone wild after the last episode of Season 9**

A/N: Why is Jonathan Cole not on the character list? There should be a function to add characters by yourself.

* * *

 _"Get outta here." he said simply. "It's too close to the building."_

 _The older man stared straight in his eyes in silent question, not giving in, until he was distracted by a moving figure on the other side of a narrow basement window._

 _Abigail Sciuto._

 _"Go, get HER outta here!" he urged again, with a little too much panic in his voice._

 _The older man's eyes darted back to him, mouth half open, but the unasked question was silenced by the younger man's confident grin._

 _"It wasn't the danger, it was the fun."_

 _Understanding dawned on the older man's face. Leroy Jethro Gibbs, the ever so observant detective, softened his expression._

 _Whatever he had perceived, he did not say. And Jonathan Cole was grateful for that._

 _Holding the army knife handed to him by the older man, he began concentrating on the task at hand - The bomb hid inside Director Vance's car parked just outside the NCIS Headquarter._

 _Tracing the edge of the bomb, he concluded it was just another standard remote control explosive device, nothing fancy. The detonator was no doubt the cell phone, If only he could cut…_

 _And the phone rang._

* * *

 **NCIS Headquarter, 30 minutes ago**

"Gibbs, Gibbs, Gibbs…" Abby trotted into the squad room where the rest of the team gathered. A USB key was tightly held in her hand. There was a sense of urgency in her steps

All eyes were on her in an instance, including a pair that was less familiar. She came to a sudden halt.

Gibbs was standing in front of the big plasma accompanied by Tony and McGee. His usual seat was occupied by someone else, someone she'd only met briefly in person but had seen quite a few times on a photo - Jonathan Cole, aka Casey Stratton, the FBI imposter who sold national security information to the enemies, killed Cade and tried to kill Tony and EJ, who was locked up in Leavenworth until Gibbs and Dr. Ryan decided to use him as a double agent to lure out the terrorist the NCIS was current after, Harper Dearing.

Jonathan Cole gave her a polite nod and a half smile, to which Abby only responded with distaste.

"What is it, Abbs?" Gibbs asked, pulling her out of the infinite awkwardness.

"I processed the recording of Harper Dearing's phone call." She peeled her eyes away from Cole to look at Gibbs, "there's nothing much to work on, so I enhanced the background sound, hope that would help." She spat the words out faster than her already fast speech.

McGee took the USB and plugged it into his computer, the voice of Harper Dearing flew through the speakers of the plasma.

Cole's eyes never left Abby. For some reason, that girl intrigued him. He remembered their first encounter on the day when his supposedly straightforward mission had gone south. He had sought after a hospitalized DiNozzo as part of the "cleaning up", only to run straight into Gibbs, who had shoved him right back to the elevator for a ride down to the lobby. He had been so distracted trying to come up with a backup plan that he'd bumped into her the moment he stepped out of the door.

"Sorry." He had apologized profoundly, putting out his best charm.

The girl had said nothing, instead, she had given him a suspicious visual examination from head to toe back to the head, before sliding past him into the elevator, pressing the button to close the doors all too quickly, leaving Cole out to chuckle and shook his head at the embarrassment.

Later, when he had returned to the floor where DiNozzo had been placed, using stairs to avoid unwanted encounters, he'd seen her again, talking to Gibbs by the receptionist. It had been too far away to make out their conversation, but given Gibbs' contemplated expression and her constant nodding, it was not hard to guess he must have been giving some sort of instructions, to which the girl with pigtails and a dog collar had been happy to oblige. It was until the girl had left and Gibbs had walked off to the opposite direction had he been able to make his way to DiNozzo's room, only to discover Dr. Cranston's presence.

Cole snickered at the memory. With all the reputations, Anthony DiNozzo did seem to have some extraordinary luck whenever women were involved. The guarding angel of the House of DiNozzo must be a female, he thought.

That was when he noticed the girl's eyes were on him again, this time, with more curiosity than hostility. But when he lifted his eyes to meet hers, she quickly looked away, masking her face with disgust and contempt once again.

And that bothered him, more than he cared to admit.

Sure, he was a bad man who had done awful things, he was certain that his ultimate destination was Leavenworth, where he would spend the rest of his life before facing a firing squard, and he was OK with it. But there was something inside those hazel eyes so fierce and bright that it burned through his corporeal being and reached his soul, torturing him from the inside.

And it hurt.

"Man's got a funny way of showing his lack of interest." Director Vance's cynical comment drew him back to the reality. The NCIS team had finished playing back the phone conversation.

"Guy's got stones, I'll give him that." He chimed in, taking the opportunity to recompose himself. Most chose to ignore him, like they had been doing in the past hour or so, with some exceptions.

"Should you still be here?" DiNozzo said rather gruffly, to which Cole only responded with a half smirk. The guy had openly shown his hostility towards him the moment he stepped out of the NCIS elevator. And who could blame him? After all, he did make three attempts on his life in the past year or so.

He felt Abby's eyes were on him again, like needles and pins stabbing through his skin and into his conscience. He felt extremely uneasy, yet could not master enough courage to stare her back, afraid of seeing the disgust in those beautiful eyes again.

Oh Jonathan Cole, the former special force officer, Navy Intel, the fearless Phantom, could not look at a girl in the eyes.

The team went on talking about the case, trying to deduce Dearing's next plan of action, leaving Cole to face his torment alone. He tried to concentrate on the conversation he had no part in, in a vain attempt to ease the pain. They talked about Dr. Ryan, the background sound of Dearing's phone call, then moved on to the Director's car. That was when Gibbs suddenly raised his voice.

"You mean we didn't strip it down?" Gibbs stared sharply at Abby, the girl with pigtails seemed to have been startled by his sudden action.

"There was no reason to." Ziva jumped to her rescue. "We didn't find any prints, no signs of tampering, nothing."

 _Uh-oh, not good!_

He looked at Gibbs, the older man's grave expression told him exactly the same thing.

"Evacuate, get everybody out of here!" the former Marine started issuing orders.

"Clearing the building, call the bomb squad!" Director Vance soon followed suit.

Everyone spun into action, some picked up the phone, others headed to the nearest exit, except Abby, who stood in the middle of the room like a lost puppy, not knowing what to do.

"There's something there, we need to shut it down." Gibbs said while walking toward his desk. Cole stood up from his seat, but the older man simply slid past him, retrieved his gun from the drawer, without sparing him much of an eye contact.

"Gibbs, you know I was in bomb disposal." The younger man turned around, facing him.

"They are already on their way." he brushed it off half-heartedly, not giving him the chance.

"Not fast enough." Cole retorted, successfully won over the older man's attention.

They stood facing each other, one with suspicious scrutiny, the other with stubborn assertion.

"Yeah, come on." Finally Gibbs gave in, grabbing the younger man by the arm and swiftly headed for the door.

As they walked past Abby, Cole gave the positively stunned girl a playful smile.

Outside, men and women from the Navy Yard emerged from all directions in orderly chaos. Gibbs and Cole moved against the flow of traffic, marching toward the place from which everyone else was running away. Cole felt his blood running hot, the tickling sensation of adrenaline was something he had missed all too much. By the time he held out his arms for Gibbs to remove the handcuffs, his heart was literally jumping in excitement.

"So, where do we start?"

* * *

 _The ringing of the phone was like the bell of death tolling for him. He felt all oxygen had left his lungs, and his blood ran cold._

 _Time was up._

 _He had always known, from the moment he'd gone rogue that someday, death would catch up on him. He'd come to term with it when he had been locked up in Leavenworth. Yet, when Dr. Ryan and Agent Gibbs had approached him with ambiguous offers such as "putting a light at the end of your tunnel", or "keep you away from the firing squad", he'd taken the chance nevertheless. Let them think of him as a coward who was foolish enough to believe he'd got a chance to escape the punishment, because it was never about that._

 _He shifted his eyes away from his impending doom to the narrow windows of Abby's lab. The girl had finally gathered everything and began dashing for the door. Knowing that Gibbs would get to her in seconds, a content smile lit up his face._

 _He was not there to win the pot with a bad hand. He was there because, should he be killed in the process, maybe, just maybe, someone would think of him as more than a cold blooded killer and a criminal, someone would think of him as a hero that he once was, that he could have become._

 _It was his last thought before the bomb went off._

* * *

Abby sat on the ruin of a brick wall, staring blankly at a body lying merely inches away. She'd survived the explosion, but many didn't.

She watched in silence as the EMS workers putting a tarp over the deceased. He was killed in the blast, they said, too close to the center of explosion.

Too close... And what if someone was _at_ the center of explosion? Would there be anything left?

As a scientist, Abby knew only too well.

She eyes were fixed on what was left of Director Vance's car. The fire fighters were scooping ashes out of the carbonized steel shell, nothing was in any identifiable shape.

She tilted her head and looked away.

Gibbs approached her from behind with concerns written all over his face. She waved at him, tried to squeeze out a smile but failed miserably. The man nodded in understanding.

Then came the Director, and then the SecNav. The men were talking about their next move, with Gibbs insisted on finding his team first.

Abby felt a sudden pounding in her head and sickness arose from her stomach. It had become too much. Slowly she rose to her feet and set off to join Gibbs, determined to help him find her family, _their_ family. Later, she would help them catch the bastard who did this, like she had always done.

It was surprising how strong humans can be in light of an atrocity. The day after the explosion, most survivors from the Navy Yard had returned to their duties. Harper Dearing had successfully replaced Bin Laden and became the most wanted fugitive on the NCIS watch list. Rival agencies formed an alliance, all for the purpose of bringing whoever responsible for the bombing to justice.

Abby was heading to her lab when she was stopped by a sudden surge of emotions. She looked up, and there she was, once again, just outside her beloved lab where the bomb went off. It was the only place that still being marked off by yellow tapes.

The pounding in her head returned, less strong but more rhythmic, like someone's heart beating in her head. A trace of melancholy lingered in the air.

The remains of Director Vance's car had now been loaded onto a truck, the fire crew was still cleaning off the debris from its surroundings. The sunlight hit the blackened metal, and was reflected into mysterious shades of blue. The site drew her in like a magnet.

"Ma'am, ma'am. I'm sorry, but this area is off limit." A young man with brilliant blue eyes politely stopped her. In a haze, Abby thought she'd seen someone else.

"Um, I was just wondering…" She twitched uncomfortably, "were you able to recover any body parts from the inside of the car."

"Body parts?" The young man's eyes widened in shock. "You mean someone was _inside_ the car when the explosion happened?"

"Well, yes… I mean, I was told, that someone was trying to defuse the bomb before it went off." Abby paused briefly, "He was someone I knew."

"Oh." The young man's shocking face was replaced by sympathy. "Um, given the magnitude and the proximity of the explosion, I'm afraid the chance of recovering the body was slight." He said apologetically.

Abby said nothing. It was not unexpected, but somehow her chest still tightened at the news.

"I'm sorry for your loss, ma'am. Your friend, he was a hero." The young man continued, resting a comforting hand on her shoulder.

Abby wanted to tell him that he'd misunderstood. That man was not a friend or a hero, but an enemy and a criminal. He was a very bad man who had sold state secrets to foreign countries, killed innocent people for money, and tried to hurt her family. She wanted to say that she was happy to see him gone without a trace, never to hurt anyone again.

But she wasn't.

Instead, she was in lost for word, drowned in a wave of overwhelming sorrow that made her eyes water.

Despite everything he had done, Jonathan Cole offered himself to the front line. It could have been his perfect chance to escape. With the chaotic nature of the evacuation, he could have easily vanished from everyone's sight, and never to be seen again. Instead, he chose to stay behind, facing the danger alone when everyone else was running away. In that moment, the last moment of his life, he _was_ a hero.

Warm wind gently brushed Abby's cheeks, drying out her tears. The pounding in her head faded. With a long sigh, she bowed her head slightly in respect.

"Thank you." She whispered. She didn't know why, just felt those words needed to be said.


End file.
